


When I said I wanted a horse for my birthday...

by UmbreonGurl



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sad, Spoilers, no beta we die like men, post ch 9, right after THE THING happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbreonGurl/pseuds/UmbreonGurl
Summary: I didn't want yours. (Post Ch. 9 Spoilers.)





	When I said I wanted a horse for my birthday...

“When I said I wanted a horse for my birthday… I didn’t want yours,” she says, as she approaches her father’s grave. The dirt around it is still recently dug, the rushed funeral still all too fresh in her mind. “I wanted you to take me to one of the auctions, just like I’d dreamed of as a little girl.” 

She looks up at the sky.

“We’d weave through the crowd, and watch the horses on the auction block. We’d watch as one by one they’d pass us by, bays, dapples, and grays, until finally we’d settle on the perfect one. Just you and me.”

She grips the flowers in her hands so tight that she can almost feel their stems snap in her grip.

“It’d be perfectly sized. Not too big, not too small, just right for a person of my stature. You’d laugh and tease me when I’d give it some silly name, like Patches, or Thunder, because ‘You’re too serious all the time to have a horse named Patches, By.’”

She kneels down and gently—oh so gently—places them down on top of her father’s grave next to the others. 

“But that wasn’t the way things went, was it, huh, Dad?” she says bitterly, as the tears drip down her face. “For my birthday, you just had to give me yours. Storm, your big, beautiful, brown horse, your unofficial second child, who has carried both you and I since as long as I can remember.”

She chokes for a minute on her own breath. 

“And you weren’t even there to give him to me.”

She wonders if he can hear her from the afterlife. Would he be proud of her? Of what she’s done? Of the woman she’s grown up to be?

“He was caked in blood, you know. Whether it be from your enemies, or was yours, I’m not sure, Dad.”

She clenches her fists so hard she can feel her nails bite into her palms. She doesn’t care.

_It_ _isn’t fair. _

_It isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t fair. IT ISN’T FAIR._

“I miss you.”

She trembles. She trembles out of anger, out of fear, out of some unholy mix of them both she can’t quite put her finger on. She can turn back time, bend the laws of the universe, but even that wasn’t good enough.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

She thinks back to Sothis’s words, something about it being “fate, meant to be, unchangable.” Was it really, though? Would he still be with her if they had never gone to Garreg Mach? Surely, if she had done _ something _ different at some point down the line, he might still be here.

It doesn’t matter now.

* * *

Byleth spends much of the day with Storm. She knows she’s clinging to his horse as if it is a piece of him. Some part of her deep down is still the little girl clinging with tiny fists to her father’s pant legs, grinning up at him with a gap-toothed smile and calling him “papa.”

She is bigger, now, than she was back when they first got him. Where she barely used to be able to reach Storm’s neck, she can now reach it with ease. Her hands, once too small for the brushes, are now big enough to fit them. She brushes off clouds of dirt from his back, gently prying bits of dried blood from his shaggy coat, and afterwards, combs out the tangles in his mane with slow, methodical strokes. 

She counts her breaths.

In. Out. In. Out. One. Two. One. Two. In. Out. 

It is quiet aside from the occasional huff from Storm when she accidentally bumps into him with shaking hands and the chirping of the birds that live in the rafters of the stables. 

She knows, that in truth, she probably doesn’t look much better than Storm does. She is bathed in blood, sweat, and tears, and her outfit is stinky, stained, and a bit torn around the edges. But she hasn’t had the energy to clean herself up. Not yet. 

As she passes by various students, she gets some words of condolences, but for the most part, the students have been giving her a wide berth. It’s as if they think of her like she is some sort of feral animal. 

Truth be told, she feels like one, and she probably looks like one too. She wants to tear apart the woman who killed him, who stole him from her, piece by piece, bit by bit, until there is nothing left. 

“Revenge is unhealthy,” they tell her. 

Is it? Is this whole situation not unhealthy? What’s one more bad habit to add on to the rest? 

She sits down and rests her back on the side of the stall, and Storm places his head by hers, the warm huff of his breath blowing on her ears. 

It’s almost as if he, too, is sad. He nudges her. She can’t help but chuckle a little, and her chest burns. 

“You miss him too, huh, buddy?” she says, giving his face an affectionate rub. 

It’s ironic, she’d like to think, that the last birthday present her father ever got her was one she had never wanted him to give her.

_Not like this._

_Never like this._

**Author's Note:**

> Have I said how torn up I am about Jeralt dying? Because the answer is very and my heart aches. I've literally played this game like 4 times now and it still gets me EVERY TIME. I try to brace myself for it but I'm never ready. ;-;


End file.
